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Critias. Then listen, Socrates, to a strange tale,

which is, however, certainly true, as Solon, who was

the wisest of the seven sages, declared. He was a

relative and great friend of my great-grandfather,

Dropidas, as be himself says in several of his

poems; and Dropidas told Critias, my grandfather,

who remembered, and told us, that there were of old

great and marvellous actions of the Athenians, which

have passed into oblivion through time and the

destruction of the human race and one in particular,

which was the greatest of them all, the recital of which

will be a suitable testimony of our gratitude to you....

Socrates. Very good; and what is. this ancient famous

action of which Critias spoke, not as a mere legend,

but as a veritable action of the Athenian State,

which Solon recounted!

Critias. I will tell an old-world story which I

heard from an aged man; for Critias was, as be said,

at that time nearly ninety years of age, and I was about

ten years of age. Now the day was that day of the

Apaturia which is called the registration of youth; at

which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes

for recitations, and the poems of several poets were

recited by us boys, and many of us sung the poems of

Solon, which were new at the time. One of our tribe,

either because this was his real opinion, or because he

thought that he would please Critias, said that, in his

judgment, Solon was not only the wisest of men but

the noblest of poets. The old man, I well remember,

brightened up at this, and said, smiling: "Yes,

Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets,

made poetry the business of his life, and had completed

the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had

not been compelled, by reason of the factions and

troubles which he found stirring in this country when

he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion

be would have been as famous as Homer, or Hesiod,

or any poet."

"And what was that poem about, Critias?" said the

person who addressed him.

"About the greatest action which the Athenians ever

did, and which ought to have been most famous, but

which, through the lapse of time and the destruction of

the actors, has not come down to us."

"Tell us," said the other, "the whole story, and how and

from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition."

He replied: "At the head of the Egyptian Delta,

where the river Nile divides, there is a certain district

which is called the district of Sais, and the great city

of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from

which Amasis the king was sprung. And the

citizens have a deity who is their foundress: she is

called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, which is asserted

by them to be the same whom the Hellenes called

Athene. Now, the citizens of this city are great

lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some

way related to them. Thither came Solon, who was

received by them with great honor; and be asked the

priests, who were most skilful in such matters, about

antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any

other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the

times of old. On one occasion, when he was drawing

them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the

most ancient things in our part of the world--about

Phoroneus, who is called 'the first,' and about Niobe;

and, after the Deluge, to tell of the lives of Deucalion

and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their

descendants, and attempted to reckon bow many years old

were the events of which he was speaking, and to give

the dates. Thereupon, one of the priests, who was of

very great age; said, 'O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes

are but children, and there is never an old man who is

an Hellene.' Solon, bearing this, said, 'What do you

mean?' 'I mean to say,' he replied, 'that in mind you are

all young; there is no old opinion handed down among

you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary

with age. And I will tell you the reason of this:

there have been, and there will be again, many

destructions of mankind arising out of many causes.

There is a story which even you have preserved, that

once upon a time Phaethon, the son of Helios, having

yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was

not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt

up all that was upon the earth, and was himself

destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now, this has the form of a

myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies

moving around the earth and in the heavens, and a great

conflagration of things upon the earth recurring at long

intervals of time: when this happens, those who live

upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more

liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or

on the sea-shore; and from this calamity the Nile, who

is our never-failing savior, saves and delivers us.

When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth

with a deluge of water, among you herdsmen and

shepherds on the mountains are the survivors,

whereas those of you who live in cities are carried by

the rivers into the sea; but in this country neither at

that time nor at any other does the water come from

above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up

from below, for which reason the things preserved

here are said to be the oldest. The fact is, that

wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer

sun does not prevent, the human race is always

increasing at times, and at other times diminishing in

numbers. And whatever happened either in your

country or in ours, or in any other region of which we

are informed--if any action which is noble or great, or

in any other way remarkable has taken place, all that has

been written down of old, and is preserved in our

temples; whereas you and other nations are just being

provided with letters and the other things which

States require; and then, at the usual period, the

stream from heaven descends like a pestilence, and

leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters

and education; and thus you have to begin all over again

as children, and know nothing of what happened in

ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.

As for those genealogies of yours which you have

recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the

tales of children; for, in the first place, you remember

one deluge only, whereas there were many of them; and,

in the next place, you do not know that there dwelt in

your land the fairest and noblest race of men which

ever lived, of whom you and your whole city are but a

seed or remnant. And this was unknown to you,

because for many generations the survivors of that

destruction died and made no sign. For there was a time,

Solon, before that great deluge of all, when the city

which now is Athens was first in war, and was

preeminent for the excellence of her laws, and is said

to have performed the noblest deeds, and to have had

the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells,

under the face of heaven.' Solon marvelled at this, and

earnestly requested the priest to inform him exactly

and in order about these former citizens. 'You are

welcome to hear about them, Solon,' said the priest,

'both for your own sake and for that of the city; and,

above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the

common patron and protector and educator of both our

cities. She founded your city a thousand years before

ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the

seed of your race, and then she founded ours, the

constitution of which is set down in our sacred

registers as 8000 years old. As touching the

citizens of 9000 years ago, I will briefly inform you

of their laws and of the noblest of their actions; and

the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go

through at our leisure in the sacred registers

themselves. If you compare these very laws with your

own, you will find that many of ours are the counterpart

of yours, as they were in the olden time. In the first

place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated

from all the others; next there are the artificers, who

exercise their several crafts by themselves, and without

admixture of any other; and also there is the class of

shepherds and that of hunters, as well as that of

husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the

warriors in Egypt are separated from all the other

classes, and are commanded by the law only to engage in

war; moreover, the weapons with which they are

equipped are shields and spears, and this the

goddess taught first among you, and then in Asiatic

countries, and we among the Asiatics first adopted.

"'Then, as to wisdom, do you observe what care the law

took from the very first, searching out and

comprehending the whole order of things down to

prophecy and medicine (the latter with a view to health);

and out of these divine elements drawing what was

needful for human life, and adding every sort of

knowledge which was connected with them. All this

order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to

you when establishing your city; and she chose the spot

of earth in which you were born, because she saw that

the happy temperament of the seasons in that land would

produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess,

who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected,

and first of all settled that spot which was the most

likely to produce men likest herself. And there you

dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones,

and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the

children and disciples of the gods. Many great and

wonderful deeds are recorded of your State in our

histories; but one of them exceeds all the rest in

greatness and valor; for these histories tell of a mighty

power which was aggressing wantonly against the whole

of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an

end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic

Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable;

and there was an island situated in front of the straits

which you call the Columns of Heracles: the island

was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was

the way to other islands, and from the islands you might

pass through the whole of the opposite continent which

surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is

within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbor,

having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea,

and the surrounding land may be most truly called a

continent. Now, in the island of Atlantis there was a

great and wonderful empire, which had rule over the

whole island and several others, as well as over parts

of the continent; and, besides these, they subjected the

parts of Libya within the Columns of Heracles as far

as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. The

vast power thus gathered into one, endeavored to

subdue at one blow our country and yours, and the

whole of the land which was within the straits; and then,

Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of

her virtue and strength, among all mankind; for she

was the first in courage and military skill, and was the

leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off

from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having

undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated

and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from

slavery those who were not yet subjected, and freely

liberated all the others who dwelt within the limits of

Heracles. But afterward there occurred violent

earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night

of rain all your warlike men in a body sunk into the

earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner

disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea. And that

is the reason why the sea in those parts is impassable

and impenetrable, because there is such a quantity of

shallow mud in the way; and this was caused by the

subsidence of the island. . .’

"But in addition to the gods whom you have

mentioned, I would specially invoke Mnemosyne; for

all the important part of what I have to tell is

dependent on her favor, and if I can recollect and

recite enough of what was said by the priests, and

brought hither by Solon, I doubt not that I shall

satisfy the requirements of this theatre. To that task,

then, I will at once address myself.

"Let me begin by observing, first of all, that nine

thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since

the war which was said to have taken place between all

those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and

those who dwelt within them: this war I am now to

describe. Of the combatants on the one side the city of

Athens was reported to have been the ruler, and to

have directed the contest; the combatants on the other

side were led by the kings of the islands of Atlantis,

which, as I was saying, once had an extent greater than

that of Libya and Asia; and, when afterward sunk by

an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to

voyagers sailing from hence to the ocean. The progress

of the history will unfold the various tribes of

barbarians and Hellenes which then existed, as they

successively appear on the scene; but I must begin by

describing, first of all, the Athenians as they were in

that day, and their enemies who fought with them; and I

shall have to tell of the power and form of government

of both of them. Let us give the precedence to

Athens. . . .

Many great deluges have taken place during the nine

thousand years, for that is the number of years which

have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking;

and in all the ages and changes of things there has

never been any settlement of the earth flowing down

from the mountains, as in other places, which is worth

speaking of; it has always been carried round in a

circle, and disappeared in the depths below. The

consequence is that, in comparison of what then was,

there are remaining in small islets only the bones of the

wasted body, as they may be called, all the richer and

softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere

skeleton of the country being left. . . .

"And next, if I have not forgotten what I heard

when I was a child, I will impart to you the character

and origin of their adversaries; for friends should

not keep their stories to themselves, but have them in

common. Yet, before proceeding farther in the narrative,

I ought to warn you that you must not be surprised if

you should bear Hellenic names given to foreigners. I

will tell you the reason of this: Solon, who was

intending to use the tale for his poem, made an

investigation into the meaning of the names, and found

that the early Egyptians, in writing them down, had

translated them into their own language, and be

recovered the meaning of the several names and

retranslated them, and copied them out again in our

language. My great-grandfather, Dropidas, had the

original writing, which is still in my possession, and

was carefully studied by me when I was a child.

Therefore, if you bear names such as are used in this

country, you must not be surprised, for I have told

you the reason of them.

"The tale, which was of great length, began as follows:

I have before remarked, in speaking of the allotments

of the gods, that they distributed the whole earth into

portions differing in extent, and made themselves

temples and sacrifices. And Poseidon, receiving for

his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a

mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island

which I will proceed to describe. On the side toward

the sea, and in the centre of the whole island, there was

a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all

plains, and very fertile. Near the plain again, and also

in the centre of the island, at a distance of about fifty

stadia, there was a mountain, not very high on any side.

In this mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born

primeval men of that country, whose name was Evenor,

and he had a wife named Leucippe, and they had an only

daughter, who was named Cleito. The maiden was

growing up to womanhood when her father and mother

died; Poseidon fell in love with her, and had

intercourse with her; and, breaking the ground,

enclosed the hill in which she dwelt all round, making

alternate zones of sea and land, larger and smaller,

encircling one another; there were two of land and three

of water, which he turned as with a lathe out of the

centre of the island, equidistant every way, so that no

man could get to the island, for ships and voyages were

not yet heard of. He himself, as be was a god, found no

difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre

island, bringing two streams of water under the earth,

which he caused to ascend as springs, one of warm

water and the other of cold, and making every variety of

food to spring up abundantly in the earth. He also begat

and brought up five pairs of male children, dividing

the island of Atlantis into ten portions: he gave to

the first-born of the eldest pair his mother's dwelling

and the surrounding allotment, which was the largest

and best, and made him king over the rest; the others

he made princes, and gave them rule over many men and

a large territory. And he named them all: the eldest,

who was king, he named Atlas, and from him the

whole island and the ocean received the name of

Atlantic. To his twin-brother, who was born after

him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of the island

toward the Pillars of Heracles, as far as the country

which is still called the region of Gades in that part

of the world, be gave the name which in the Hellenic

language is Eumelus, in the language of the country

which is named after him, Gadeirus. Of the second

pair of twins, he called one Ampheres and the other

Evaemon. To the third pair of twins he gave the name

Mneseus to the elder, and Autochthon to the one

who followed him. Of the fourth pair of twins he

called the elder Elasippus and the younger Mestor,

And of the fifth pair be gave to the elder the name of

Azaes, and to the younger Diaprepes. All these

and their descendants were the inhabitants and rulers

of divers islands in the open sea; and also, as has

been already said, they held sway in the other direction

over the country within the Pillars as far as Egypt and

Tyrrhenia. Now Atlas had a numerous and

honorable family, and his eldest branch always retained

the kingdom, which the eldest son handed on to his

eldest for many generations; and they had such an

amount of wealth as was never before possessed by

kings and potentates, and is not likely ever to be again,

and they were furnished with everything which they

could have, both in city and country. For, because of the

greatness of their empire, many things were brought to

them from foreign countries, and the island itself

provided much of what was required by them for the

uses of life. In the first place, they dug out of the

earth whatever was to be found there, mineral as well

as metal, and that which is now only a name, and was

then something more than a name--orichalcum--was dug

out of the earth in many parts of the island, and, with

the exception of gold, was esteemed the most precious

of metals among the men of those days. There was an

abundance of wood for carpenters' work, and sufficient

maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover,

there were a great number of elephants in the island,

and there was provision for animals of every kind,

both for those which live in lakes and marshes and

rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and

on plains, and therefore for the animal which is the

largest and most voracious of them. Also, whatever

fragrant things there are in the earth, whether roots, or

herbage, or woods, or distilling drops of flowers or

fruits, grew and thrived in that land; and again, the

cultivated fruit of the earth, both the dry edible fruit

and other species of food, which we call by the general

name of legumes, and the fruits having a hard rind,

affording drinks, and meats, and ointments, and good

store of chestnuts and the like, which may be used to

play with, and are fruits which spoil with keeping--and

the pleasant kinds of dessert which console us after

dinner, when we are full and tired of eating--all these

that sacred island lying beneath the sun brought forth

fair and wondrous in infinite abundance. All these

things they received from the earth, and they employed

themselves in constructing their temples, and palaces,

and harbors, and docks; and they arranged the whole

country in the following manner: First of all they

bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the

ancient metropolis, and made a passage into and out of

they began to build the palace in the royal palace; and

then the habitation of the god and of their ancestors.

This they continued to ornament in successive

generations, every king surpassing the one who came

before him to the utmost of his power, until they made

the building a marvel to behold for size and for beauty.

And, beginning from the sea, they dug a canal three

hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth,

and fifty stadia in length, which they carried through to

the outermost zone, making a passage from the sea up

to this, which became a harbor, and leaving an opening

sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress.

Moreover, they divided the zones of land which

parted the zones of sea, constructing bridges of such a

width as would leave a passage for a single trireme to

pass out of one into another, and roofed them over;

and there was a way underneath for the ships, for the

banks of the zones were raised considerably above

the water. Now the largest of the zones into which a

passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in

breadth, and the zone of land which came next of

equal breadth; but the next two, as well the zone of

water as of land, were two stadia, and the one which

surrounded the central island was a stadium only in

width. The island in which the palace was situated had

a diameter of five stadia. This, and the zones and the

bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width,

they surrounded by a stone wall, on either side placing

towers, and gates on the bridges where the sea passed

in. The stone which was used in the work they

quarried from underneath the centre island and from

underneath the zones, on the outer as well as the

inner side. One kind of stone was white, another

black, and a third red; and, as they quarried, they at the

same time hollowed out docks double within, having

roofs formed out of the native rock. Some of their

buildings were simple, but in others they put together

different stones, which they intermingled for the sake

of ornament, to be a natural source of delight. The

entire circuit of the wall which went round the

outermost one they covered with a coating of brass, and

the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and the

third, which encompassed the citadel flashed with the

red light of orichalcum. The palaces in the interior of

the citadel were constructed in this wise: In the centre

was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon,

which remained inaccessible, and was surrounded by an

enclosure of gold; this was the spot in which they

originally begat the race of the ten princes, and thither

they annually brought the fruits of the earth in their

season from all the ten portions, and performed

sacrifices to each of them. Here, too, was Poiseidon's

own temple, of a stadium in length and half a stadium in

width, and of a proportionate height, having a sort of

barbaric splendor. All the outside of the temple, with

the exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver,

and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the

temple the roof was of ivory, adorned everywhere with

gold and silver and orichalcum; all the other parts of

the walls and pillars and floor they lined with

orichalcum. In the temple they placed statues of gold:

there was the god himself standing in a chariot--the

charioteer of six winged horses--and of such a size

that he touched the roof of the building with his head;

around him there were a hundred Nereids riding on

dolphins, for such was thought to be the number of

them in that day. There were also in the interior of the

temple other images which had been dedicated by private

individuals. And around the temple on the outside

were placed statues of gold of all the ten kings and of

their wives; and there were many other great offerings,

both of kings and of private individuals, coming both

from the city itself and the foreign cities over which

they held sway. There was an altar, too, which in size

and workmanship corresponded to the rest of the

work, and there were palaces in like manner which

answered to the greatness of the kingdom and the glory

of the temple.

"In the next place, they used fountains both of cold

and hot springs; these were very abundant, and both

kinds wonderfully adapted to use by reason of the

sweetness and excellence of their waters. They

constructed buildings about them, and planted suitable

trees; also cisterns, some open to the heaven, other

which they roofed over, to be used in winter as warm

baths, there were the king's baths, and the baths of

private persons, which were kept apart; also separate

baths for women, and others again for horses and cattle,

and to them they gave as much adornment as was suitable

for them. The water which ran off they carried, some to

the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner

of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the

excellence of the soil; the remainder was conveyed by

aqueducts which passed over the bridges to the outer

circles: and there were many temples built and dedicated

to many gods; also gardens and places of exercise,

some for men, and some set apart for horses, in both

of the two islands formed by the zones; and in the

centre of the larger of the two there was a race-course

of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to extend

all round the island, for horses to race in. Also

there were guard-houses at intervals for the body-

guard, the more trusted of whom had their duties

appointed to them in the lesser zone, which was

nearer the Acropolis; while the most trusted of all

had houses given them within the citadel, and about the

persons of the kings. The docks were full of

triremes and naval stores, and all things were quite

ready for use. Enough of the plan of the royal palace.

Crossing the outer harbors, which were three in

number, you would come to a wall which began at the sea

and went all round: this was everywhere distant fifty

stadia from the largest zone and harbor, and enclosed

the whole, meeting at the mouth of the channel toward the

sea. The entire area was densely crowded with

habitations; and the canal and the largest of the harbors

were full of vessels and merchants coming from all

parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a

multitudinous sound of human voices and din of all

sorts night and day. I have repeated his descriptions

of the city and the parts about the ancient palace nearly as

he gave them, and now I must endeavor to describe the

nature and arrangement of the rest of the country. The

whole country was described as being very lofty and

precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country

immediately about and surrounding the city was a level

plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended

toward the sea; it was smooth and even, but of an

oblong shape, extending in one direction three

thousand stadia, and going up the country from the sea

through the centre of the island two thousand stadia;

the whole region of the island lies toward the south,

and is sheltered from the north. The surrounding

mountains he celebrated for their number and size and

beauty, in which they exceeded all that are now to be

seen anywhere; having in them also many wealthy

inhabited villages, and rivers and lakes, and meadows

supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame,

and wood of various sorts, abundant for every kind of

work. I will now describe the plain, which had been

cultivated during many ages by many generations of

kings. It was rectangular, and for the most part

straight and oblong; and what it wanted of the straight

line followed the line of the circular ditch. The depth

and width and length of this ditch were incredible and

gave the impression that such a work, in addition to so

many other works, could hardly have been wrought by

the hand of man. But I must say what I have heard.

It was excavated to the depth of a hundred feet, and

its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried

round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand

stadia in length. It received the streams which came

down from the mountains, and winding round the plain,

and touching the city at various points, was there let off

into the sea. From above, likewise, straight canals of a

hundred feet in width were cut in the plain, and again let

off into the ditch, toward the sea; these canals were at

intervals of a Hundred stadia, and by them they brought,

down the wood from the mountains to the city, and

conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting

transverse passages from one canal into another, and to

the city. Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the

earth--in winter having the benefit of the rains, and in

summer introducing the water of the canals. As to the

population, each of the lots in the plain had an

appointed chief of men who were fit for military

service, and the size of the lot was to be a square of

ten stadia each way, and the total number of all the lots

was sixty thousand.

"And of the inhabitants of the mountains and of the

rest of the country there was also a vast multitude

having leaders, to whom they were assigned according to

their dwellings and villages. The leader was required

to furnish for the war the sixth portion of a war-

chariot, so as to make up a total of ten thousand

chariots; also two horses and riders upon them, and a

light chariot without a seat, accompanied by a fighting man

on foot carrying a small shield, and having a charioteer

mounted to guide the horses; also, be was bound to

furnish two heavy-armed men, two archers, two slingers,

three stone-shooters, and three javelin men, who were

skirmishers, and four sailors to make up a

complement of twelve hundred ships. Such was the

order of war in the royal city--that of the other nine

governments was different in each of them, and would

be wearisome to narrate. As to offices and honors,

the following was the arrangement from the first: Each

of the ten kings, in his own division and in his own

city, had the absolute control of the citizens, and in

many cases of the laws, punishing and slaying

whomsoever be would.

"Now the relations of their governments to one another

were regulated by the injunctions of Poseidon as the

law had handed them down. These were inscribed by the

first men on a column of orichalcum, which was situated

in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon,

whither the people were gathered together every fifth

and sixth years alternately, thus giving equal honor to

the odd and to the even number. And when they were

gathered together they consulted about public affairs, and

inquired if any one had transgressed in anything, and

passed judgment on him accordingly--and before they

passed judgment they gave their pledges to one another

in this wise: There were bulls who had the range of

the temple of Poseidon; and the ten who were left alone

in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the gods

that they might take the sacrifices which were acceptable

to them, hunted the bulls without weapons, but with

staves and nooses; and the bull which they caught they

led up to the column; the victim was then struck on the

head by them, and slain over the sacred inscription,

Now on the column, besides the law, there was

inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the

disobedient. When, therefore, after offering sacrifice

according to their customs, they had burnt the limbs of

the bull, they mingled a cup and cast in a clot of blood

for each of them; the rest of the victim they took to the

fire, after having made a purification of the column all

round. Then they drew from the cup in golden vessels,

and, pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they

would judge according to the laws on the column, and

would punish any one who had previously

transgressed, and that for the future they would not, if

they could help, transgress any of the inscriptions, and

would not command or obey any ruler who commanded

them to act otherwise than according to the laws of their

father Poseidon. This was the prayer which each of

them offered up for himself and for his family, at the

same time drinking, and dedicating the vessel in the

temple of the god; and, after spending some necessary

time at supper, when darkness came on and the fire

about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most

beautiful azure robes, and, sitting on the ground at

night near the embers of the sacrifices on which they

had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the

temple, they received and gave judgement, if any of them

had any accusation to bring against any one; and, when

they had given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down

their sentences on a golden tablet, and deposited them as

memorials with their robes. There were many special

laws which the several kings had inscribed about the

temples, but the most important was the following: That

they were not to take up arms against one another, and

they were all to come to the rescue if any one in any city

attempted to over. throw the royal house. Like their

ancestors, they were to deliberate in common about war

and other matters, giving the supremacy to the family of

Atlas; and the king was not to have the power of life

and death over any of his kinsmen, unless he had the

assent of the majority of the ten kings.

"Such was the vast power which the god settled in the

lost island of Atlantis; and this he afterward

directed against our land on the following pretext, as

traditions tell: For many generations, as long as the

divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the

laws, and well-affectioned toward the gods, who were

their kinsmen; for they possessed true and in every

way great spirits, practising gentleness and wisdom in

the various chances of life, and in their intercourse

with one another. They despised everything but virtue,

not caring for their present state of life, arid thinking

lightly on the possession of gold and other property,

which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they

intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of

their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly

that all these goods are increased by virtuous

friendship with one another, and that by excessive

zeal for them, and honor of them, the good of them is

lost, and friendship perishes with them.

"By such reflections, and by the continuance in them

of a divine nature, all that which we have described

waxed and increased in them; but when this divine

portion began to fade away in them, and became diluted

too often, and with too much of the mortal admixture,

and the human nature got the upper-hand, then, they

being unable to bear their fortune, became unseemly, and

to him who had an eye to see, they began to appear base,

and had lost the fairest of their precious gifts; but to

those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they

still appeared glorious and blessed at the very time

when they were filled with unrighteous avarice and

power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules with law, and

is able to see into such things, perceiving that an

honorable race was in a most wretched state, and wanting

to inflict punishment on them, that they might be

chastened and improved, collected all the gods into his

most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of

the world, sees all things that partake of generation.

And when he had called them together he spake as

follows:"